Automatic tobacco harvesters are now a commercial reality and are being used by an increasing number of tobacco farmers because of both the scarcity and high cost of competent labor. All of the harvesters now on the market involve a framework which provides an elongated front-to-rear passageway for tobacco plants, with defoliating means on each side of this passageway. The leaf defoliating means is designed to strip leaves from the tobacco stalks as they pass through said passageway. Some recent patents which describe these types of harvesters in detail are
3,780,507 3,406,506 3,754,382 3,093,949 3,654,753 3,083,517 3,603,064 2,876,610 3,601,959 2,834,174 3,507,103 2,816,411 3,417,556